


The Salamander and the Snake

by tangerinechar



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Don't Read This, Fluff, How Do I Tag, I Will Go Down With This Ship, I'm Sorry, It's Discontinued, LGBTQ Character, M/M, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Alternating, POV Third Person, Soulmate Tattoos, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Unfinished, Victor is a dreamer, Victor with a K, Yakov and Lilia before breakup, Younger Yurio, dont worry the otayuri will feature in later chapters, headcanons, im back, or these ships, sad viktor, somebody help me, viktor is lonely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-30
Updated: 2017-11-16
Packaged: 2018-09-20 22:09:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9518186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tangerinechar/pseuds/tangerinechar
Summary: Viktor Nikiforov has a soulmate. That, he knows, but that's as far as his knowledge goes. They don't live near him, he's never felt that telltale spark that signals your soulmate is near you. Even as he moves up, novice to junior, traveling to Italy and France and America for the JGP, he's never felt that. When he sees a mysterious, alluring boy on TV, he can instantly feel a connection with him - but how is he gonna determine their soulbond if he cant figure out where the mystery boy lives? If he can't figure out his name?Or, the one where Viktor is a hopeful but dense idiot, and Yuuri is just really self-doubting





	1. First Hour

**Author's Note:**

> Explanation: in this world, you're either born Half or Full, with a soulbond or without one (respectively). Halves are born with a tattoo - the animal that represents your soulmate, and their initials. The tattoos don't gain color until your soulmate is also born, and if your soulmate dies the tattoo loses its color. Your soulmate's eye color is the color of the initials, and their current hair color is the animal.
> 
> Soulmate's hearts are connected, too, like a safety chain, keeping you aware your soulmate is there, is not in trouble or hurt oe anything.
> 
> Yes, this does mean that if you dye your hair, your soulmate's tattoo will change color. Initials are put in the order of the country soulmates are from, so John Smith from America would be JS, and Daichi Sato from Japan would be SD. The first time you touch your soulmate, your tattoo turns omnicient and pearly, almost like it's moving.
> 
> Thank you for reading! This is not beta-ed! i hope you enjoy!

What are days like for the people who don't have soulmates? Only a few people can answer that, it's mainly the Full scientists who understand the chemicals and hormones behind it. The Fulls who live a partially-normal life just tell you it's an empty, sucking feeling, like you're constantly falling. Your soulmate is supposed to be your support, and you hold each other up. For the Fulls, they say it is endless days spent dreaming of the life they may have had if they were born Halved, like a full 7/8ths of the population of the world.

For the Fulls, some embrace their name, some curse it and try to renounce it until people ask, and they can't hide how their palms are blanked, left unmarked by the animal carefully embracing a soulmate's initials that is inked onto the Halves' skin. They don't know what it's like, they claim. Even if your other Half's birthday is a few years from yours you still knew you were normal! You had the animal, they hiss in varying tones of angst and pain. You had that spark of longing, waiting for the moment when you put your palm up against your other half, or even when you're in a mile radius from them. The ray of sunlight a minority will never know, always present in most people's lives.

But they're wrong, Viktor Nikiforov knows. Those first four years he was all alone in the world, waiting for his soulmate to be born - every second ticking at the clock was worse than the daily bruises and the frozen sting of his toes and fingertips after hours of training. Staring at the salamander's delicate black lines, a thousand times more beautiful than his mother's embroidery, in the middle a deep wooden brown "KY" with millimeter thin flourishes, he almost lost his mind. Falling and falling, he knew he had a soulmate, who wasn't in this world yet. Or maybe they had died early, a war victim.

Viktor can tell you, the moment his soulmate was born was the best second of life. Inside his chest, something twisted and bloomed, pounding hard with vitality. His soulmate's heartbeat, it was a wonderful thing, and it made his world light up. Just imagining whatever his animal was marked in silver and blue paint in their dominant palm, circling around a bold "VN", made his day burst with the light and heat of a thousand suns. He could spend hours fantasizing about that moment they met, tears spilling from both their eyes, a tender kiss and everything set right within the world, just between his black haired, brown-eyed soulmate and him with silver hair and icy aquamarine eyes.

He liked to think of his as a dragon, his zodiac animal, he was as powerful and sleek as one on the ice. And his soulmate was a Monkey, but the animal was a salamander. Maybe it didn't have to do with the zodiac at all, maybe it was only just favorite animals like the scientists said. That was one of the many things he thought about soulmates and such. (Maybe his soulmate was like a salamander. His mother said that he was like a robin, flying free. A robin wouldn't be too bad.)

But other than that second his soulmate named "KY" popped into the world, absolutely nothing eventful happened. Viktor was getting bored. He was ten already, under the tutelage of Yakov, who might as well have adopted him already, and his wife Lilia who was the strict but loving (in her own way) mother he never had. Many nights he stayed at their place, training and sleeping away from the increasingly constant slaps and pinches.

But his soulmate's heart didn't skip a beat, never. It never raced, though it may have went fast a few times, or slowed down abnormally fast. By the age of ten, Viktor had all but accepted it as an extra limb he never used, the background presence of it a whisper of something that used to be a fairy tale. Doing the math, his soulmate was only six years old, but during that age Viktor was already doing single flips on the ice, ready to start his axel. Even the toddlers he saw on the streets of St. Petersburg were filled with energy, cheeks flushed from the cold during the winter and sandeled feet leaving the ground for brief spurts of running during summer.

But right before he turned eleven, and when his soulmate had just turned seven, he felt the jump of a heartbeat in his chest, of a person falling onto something cold. It was maybe 7 AM for him, during his weekend practice hours, and he was in the middle of a double loop. He fell from the shock of this, but his own heart was beating rapidly, sending out a message to his soulmate 6 hours ahead of him.  _Hi! It's me, your soulmate, I'm so glad to hear from you!_

"Vitenka! What the hell are you doing?" Shouted Yakov as he picked himself off the ice, wincing at the bruise he knew was going to form on his thigh in a few days, mottled purple and brown. A grin spread to his cheeks, his silver ponytail bounced with new excitement. Mila, a younger, new, girl with sapphire eyes and burnt-red hair, giggled behind her glove, whispering something to a boy he didn't recognize with pointed black hair and a dramatic face. When Viktor would have shot them a dirty but indulgent look, though, he completely ignored them.

Yakov glided over, unsteady on his new blades. "Your soulmate, huh?" He deduced, more of a statement than a question. The coach narrowed his eyes in disapproval, dragging the young boy over to the side where Lilia stood, arms crossed and looking down her nose like a hawk. Viktor gulped.

"Look, boy, to win that medal you need to focus on your training and your training only. None of this soulmate nonsense while you're in your career." She raised her voice during the second sentence, telling everybody on the session that the same expectations applied to them. With a few grumbles and whispers, skaters moved off the boards to practice.

Viktor wanted to yell about how that was unfair, how he could pursue his soulmate while having a successful career, but that would guarentee him no board-and-bed during the worst nights. He wanted to tell them that his soulmate figure skated, that it would give him motivation. Instead, he bit down on his lip and nodded, then gathered the speed to do a clean double loop. Lilia's face softened with a hint of approval, Yakov gruffly nodded.

Viktor, for the moment, was satisfied.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Three years later, his hard work gave him the Junior Grand Prix Final gold medal. Before he stepped on the ice as the last skater for the long program, his heart raced up and down like never before, the pressure and size of the event reaching his mind at that instance. When Viktor thought about that after the awards ceremony, surely his soulmate felt that. Surely now his soulmate knew about him. They still skated, Viktor learned through the beats of their hearts that they also danced, ballet most likely as that felt similar to what he did with Lilia, who'd broken up with Yakov.

Imagine that, all their pupils thought at that time, stunned by the revelation. Some of the parents moved away purely from the social stigma surrounding that, soulmates divorcing one another. A year or so earlier, their relationship had been punctuated with strife already. It infected their coaching duties too, yelling at their students. Viktor could see the stress it placed on the newest student, a boy named Yuri Plisetsky with a bear and "OA" on his right palm, he watched Yuri from afar, making sure that he never got seriously hurt from jumps or yelled at too much by Yakov and Lilia. The boy quickly assimilated to this stifling climate, using anger and insults as an excuse for anything.

It scared Viktor.

When he met his soulmate - would they eventually cast him aside? Would their personalities just not be compatible with each other? Was that even possible? That became Viktor's worst fear. His soulmate was 10 now, and possibly doing doubles, the jarring jolts of their heart when they fell was all too synonymous with what Viktor went through. It felt so similar to Viktor, like his soulmate was there, lying next to him, only the warmth of a human was missing. He got even more scared of losing his soulmate, he saw himself in their heart, his eyes reflected in the dark ink of his palm. Sometimes at night he kissed the lines, praying that they would meet soon.

Another year passed and Viktor was fifteen now, his hair reached all the way down to his back. He won the Junior Grand Prix for the second time in a row, and moved on to win the gold at European Championships, too. There he met Christopher Giacometti, a curly blonde-haired boy that could have been his soulmate in another life, though the initials that graced his right palm were not Viktor's.

Nothing happened. That year he felt like crying every day, the day he nearly pushed himself of the edge. The lub-dub of his soulmate's heart was nearly non-existent, if he hadn't spent a good part of many nights listening intently for it he would have thought his soulmate dead. Part of him was frustrated at the lack of activity from his other Half, another part of him argued that they didn't even know what kind of person Viktor was, and couldn't know that this is what was being done to him.

Yakov shouted constantly, Viktor worked tirelessly on his triple Lutz and triple axle. "Vitya, with this by December you'll top the juniors again..." Yakov was skittish around the teenager now, having learned about his soulmate and their heart, and asking about it, and being yelled at by the usually docile Viktor. Nobody got close to him anymore, except maybe Chris. Mila and Georgi, the black-haired boy, were on good terms with him, but not really friends. His jumps faltered for a month as his body changed and his life changed, as the green sparkle in his eyes faded, and his face sunk. Even the poodle he adopted couldn't pull him out of this mood.

During July, heat and stink swamping the air, Viktor had a fierce response from his soulmate. Their heart was jumping about erratically and pounding so hard Viktor was worried his might pop out of the chest. This beat was familiar too, the rythum he heard before dancing on empty ice, captivating the audience. His soulmate was competing, Viktor sat up straight and clapsed his hands, staring out at the purple night. All through the short routine Viktor left his thoughts with them.

_Bless them, competing already! Maybe one day, I'll skate on the same ice as them._

With that thought fueling him, his practice improved by leaps and bounds. Mila, who spent much of her free time staring at her kangaroo and "SC" and not paying attention, noticed. Yuri bothered him about it, having that youngsters' intuition, even Georgi reluctantly joined in on the fun.

It was one day gearing up for Russian Nationals that he happened to turn on the TV. A special cover of the Japanese Nationals was playing on there, showing him the Novice Men's free skate. Warmup had just finished, and the flower in Viktor's chest twisted and snapped with anxiety from his soulmate's side. A calm female voice said something in Japanese as a skater took to the ice, dressed in blue and black, a handsome costume. Too bad the cameras didn't provide a close-up, he thought.

But he had other problems right now, like the way his soulmate was very obviously having an anxiety attack right now. He couldn't keep his eyes fully on the venue in the screen, his other heart gave a little jump as the first skater shook his arms out and stroked to the middle. He looked nervous, about to bomb his program, Viktor could tell. Unconsciouslly, he was cheering this stranger on.

The music started and the man in the middle gave a start and entered his program afew seconds late. Now, his other heart was pounding more that even before. The first jump, a double axel, overrotated and stepped out of the landing. Other Half's heart constricted and twisted.

_No way... It couldn't be..._

There was no way that guy was his soulmate. As Viktor learned closer to the screen, the man did another jump - double Salchow, double flip - and pulled it off beautifully. His soulmate's heart wiggled and beat with newfound fervor.

 _No, this is only a coincidence..._ he didn't even know his name! He didn't feel some sort of connection right now, only a small sense of worry for the man who seemed to have a textbook case of performance butterflies. His soulmate was probably dancing on a stage somewhere, not competing on live TV.

 _But,_ his inner conscious mused,  _wouldn't that be simply great?_


	2. Not a coincidence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well. I'm back after nearly a year. Idk what to say except sorry... I've been really, really busy. Real life is exhausting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Viktor maybe, possibly finds his soulmate

Viktor was enraptured, his heart thumping its erratic pace, captured by the Japanese skater on the television. Even as the boy fell, even as Viktor's heart dropped and danced on these missed landings, even as Yakov was yelling incessantly outside about something, Viktor just couldn't tear his eyes away from the screen. Everything except the lone figure on ice blurred. The music flowing from the TV (a lovely, lively tango piece, and Viktor may have absentmindedly thought it didn't fit this boy at all, because his lines were too soft and his movements too young to fit), the yelling, this too faded to the background. It was just Viktor and the boy, the boy and Viktor, as this black-haired skater fell out from a planned combo, Viktor could see he was crying. Large tears, almost translucent, streaming down his face as he got up (bravely, for the fourth time) and maybe someone less observant would have missed it but... _That may be my soulmate, _Viktor thought. _Of course I noticed it. He's suffering. I can feel it. _____

__

__

____

____

Viktor wanted to be there, in that instant, and help that boy. He wanted to be the one that boy hugged, the one that boy cried to in the kiss-and-cry, because there was just something inherently special about him, because Viktor's eyes just couldn't stop watching. And as the boy twisted and turned in an extravagant footwork, and as Viktor watched he knew his heart was being captured and... _Oh... _What was his name?__

____

____

Viktor couldn't really know if he was his soulmate if he didn't know mystery boy's name. Frantically, unwillingly, he scanned the screen for a name (for a KY, for any confirmation that mystery boy was his soulmate because _god _, he wanted that to be true so badly). Everything was in Japanese. Everything was in a language that he couldn't read, and for the first time Viktor began to wonder if the world was conspiring against him. Why couldn't he just have been born in Japan? _Why, now, thought Viktor, do I feel so empty - so alone?___

__

__

_____ _

_____ _

_____ _

_____ _

It wasn't like he didn't know the answer. Scientists around the world had come to the unanimous conclusion that yes, soulmates' hearts were connected and yes, after seeing your soulmate you will feel like you're missing half of yourself if you don't talk. But the thing was - Viktor had always felt like he was missing something. Even when he knew that he had a soulmate, he was constantly looking for something, in his dreams he saw a figure of smoke that reached out to him, in his practice he visualized a person jumping with him. People who knew him said that he was a dreamer, always off in his daydreams, never paying attention. The catch was: "always" stretched to the past and the future. Viktor had always longed for his soulmate to be with him, so long he couldn't remember when it started, so long that it was just part of his personality.

And now? Now Viktor was doubly alone, with his thoughts multiplying and overloading. He didn't notice as the boy bowed, shrouded in frustration and anger, and left the ice to little cheers. He didn't notice as Yakov finally barged into the room, Lilia right behind him, Yurio standing against the opposite wall. He didn't care if Yakov dragged him back to the ice, it held to meaning to him. All his movements were robotic, and as Lilia corrected his posture, told him - "for the last time, Vitya!", she emphasised - that his broken leg position was too straight, there was only one thought in his head.

_What if I never find him? What if I can't find him? ___

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this is so short!! I hope u enjoyed!! Comments and kudos are greatly appreciates!!


	3. notice!

Dear readers,

I'm very sorry, but this fic has been discontinued. I don't feel that I can keep updating this fic and another fic, while staying on track for life. I also feel rather disconnected with this fic, and I don't know how to continue.

thank you for reading this fic. i hope that you understand.

Sincerely, me

**Author's Note:**

> Leave kudos or comments, constructive criticism is definitely appreciated!


End file.
